Today, President Obama spoke in Burma  or as he termed it, Myanmar, despite official US practice to call the country Burma  and repeatedly botched the name of the countrys famed Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, instead calling her Aung YAN Suu Kyi. Then he called President Thein Sein President Sein, which was a diplomatic snafu, since the president of Burma is to be called by his full name. His speech was just as bad. After getting through the basics  acting as though his doctrine, not President Bushs multiple actions on behalf of democracy in Burma, had...

As Barack Obama appeared in the home of Myanmar pro-democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi in Yangon, the U.S. president planted a platonic, but very affectionate, kiss on her cheek (to which she appeared to slightly recoil in embarrassment). This act has surprisingly elicited little or no comment in the global press thus far  quite unusual since public displays of affection represent a grave breach of custom in virtually all Asian countries. Obama likely did not mean to offend his Burmese hosts, however, as a well-travelled man of the world, he must have known that a kiss  especially...

Barack Obama blunders again on the world stage By Nile Gardiner World Last updated: November 19th, 2012 Barack Obama: hardly off to a flying start It is only two weeks since his re-election, and his second term remains two months away, but Barack Obama is already blundering again on the world stage, with the kind of gaffes that would have been plastered on the front page of The New York Times if they had been committed by George W. Bush when he was in the White House. Obama's first term was littered with foreign policy gaffes, and there is every...

Tune in at 10am for the live webcast of our human freedom event featuring Pres & Mrs Bush & Aung San Suu Kyi http://t.co/6FhKWnJr Submit your Q's for Aung San Suu Kyi using hash tag #FreedomCollection & watch her answers live here: http://t.co/dfDOoYwC -- A Celebration of Human Freedom May 15, 2012 On Tuesday, May 15, the George W. Bush Presidential Center will hold a special event to celebrate the brave efforts of dissidents and activists around the world in their fight to be free. Joined by leading voices of liberty, President Bush will deliver major remarks on the fight...

Myanmar's government invited pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi to a meeting Friday with the new president, an official said, in the clearest step toward a political dialogue since she was released from house arrest in November.

Former President Jimmy Carter and former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari were hoping to visit the State Department this week to brief officials on their recent trip to North Korea, but nobody at the State Department was available to meet with them. Carter and Ahtisaari, both Nobel Peace Prize laureates, had been eager to give their readout of their meetings in North Korea April 26 and 27 to U.S. officials and press their case for a resumption of food aid to the Hermit Kingdom. The two are members of the Elders, a group of senior figures who have been informally engaging...

After 15 years of house arrest, the liberation of Aung San Suu Kyi, the 65-year-old pro-democracy leader of Burma, was celebrated around the world last Saturday. Her steadfast promotion of freedom and liberty against the forces of repression is admirable. World leaders were not the only ones in jubilance. There are reports that foot soldiers among the Burmese militaryâs lower ranks, view Suu Kyi as a gateway to changing the oppressive nation for the better.According to the BBC News service in Burma, several hundred disgruntled soldiers from battalions in Rangoon and Bago divisions, along with their families went to see...

The military authorities in Burma have released the pro-democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. She has appeared in front of a crowd of her supporters who rushed to her house in Rangoon when nearby barricades were removed by the security forces.

Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been sentenced to an additional 18 months house arrest by a court in Rangoon. Ms Suu Kyi, a Nobel peace laureate, was convicted of violating state security laws by allowing a US national into her lakeside home after he swam there. She was jailed for three years with hard labour, but this was commuted to house arrest, an official said. American John Yettaw was jailed for seven years, four with hard labour.

US President Barack Obama has called for the "immediate and unconditional" release of Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. In a written statement, Mr Obama said he strongly condemned Ms Suu Kyi's house arrest, which has lasted for most of the last 19 years. She is being tried for violating the terms of her detention in a case which has drawn widespread condemnation. The Nobel laureate faces up to five years in jail, if convicted. "Aung San Suu Kyi's continued detention, isolation, and show trial based on spurious charges cast serious doubt on the Burmese regime's willingness to be...

Pro-Democracy Leader Aung San Suu Kyi Rallies Set Worldwide October 24, 2007 Einnor Mendoza - AHN News Writer Yangon, Burma (AHN) - A massive rally worldwide will be launched with Burma's detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi as its centerpiece and other political prisoners in the country. Rallies will be held in 12 cities worldwide to protest the Burma's military junta's house 12-year detention of Suu Kyi. Demonstrations will be set up in Chinese embassies, following reports that Beijing would play a key role in freeing Suu Kyi, BBC News reported. The pro-Suu Kyi rallies will be conducted in...

Demonstrations are planned in 12 cities worldwide against Burma's continuing detention of democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners. Protests will be staged at Chinese embassies, as campaigners say Beijing holds the key to Ms Suu Kyi's release. The Nobel Peace Prize winner has been held by the junta, mostly under house arrest, for exactly 12 years. Australia is the latest country to impose sanctions on Burma's generals, amid global condemnation of their rule. Australian officials said the financial sanctions would target 418 individuals, including top military figures and cabinet ministers. Pressure has been growing on the...

Myanmar protesters hit 100,000 mark As many as 100,000 anti-government protesters led by a phalanx of Buddhist monks marched Monday through Yangon, the largest crowd to demonstrate in Myanmar's biggest city since a 1988 pro-democracy uprising that was brutally crushed by the military. From the front of the march, witnesses could see a one-mile stretch of eight-lane road was filled with people. Some participants said there were several hundred thousand marchers in their ranks, but an international aid agency official with employees monitoring the crowd estimated said the size was well over 50,000 and approaching 100,000. It was the latest...

Burma's opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has greeted Buddhist monks protesting against the military junta. Apparently unable to hold her tears, Aung San Suu Kyi came out of the house she has been detained in since 2003 as the monks were let through a roadblock. At least 2,000 monks are staging a sixth day of protests through the streets of the main city of Rangoon. Up to 10,000 marched through Mandalay with protests also taking place in five townships across Burma. (snip) The area around University Avenue where Ms Suu Kyi's house is located has been closed to traffic...

10,000 protest against Myanmar gov't Myanmar police allowed a group of more than 500 Buddhist monks to march Saturday past the house where opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is detained, witnesses said, on a day that saw some of the largest protests since 1988. A monk said in a speech later to anti-government protesters that Suu Kyi came to her gate to greet them. His account could not immediately be confirmed. Suu Kyi has been under detention continuously since May 2003 at her Yangon home, and for 11 of the past 18 years. The monks stopped briefly in front...

Many people in Burma have been surprised by the sheer persistence of the protests in recent weeks. In a country where the authorities show zero tolerance of even the slightest criticism, such public displays of defiance have not been seen for almost 20 years. These protests stem from a decision by the military government to suddenly raise the price of fuel by up to five times on 15 August. Transport fares rose and that triggered a sharp rise in the price of consumer goods, hitting poor people particularly hard. The generals must have hoped that the momentum of the demonstrations...

he US has expressed deep concern about reports that Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been taken to hospital. A state department spokesman said he could not confirm the reports but urged Burma's military rulers to assure she had any necessary medical assistance. Ms Suu Kyi has been held since May 2003, and has spent 10 of the last 16 years under house arrest.

Myanmar Leader Suu Kyi Calls House Arrest Extension Illegal May 27, 2006 YANGON, Myanmar  The political party of Myanmar's detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi said the extension of her house arrest Saturday is unlawful and would hurt efforts at national reconciliation. The statement from the National League from Democracy was its first public acknowledgment that the ruling junta had renewed an order confining Suu Kyi to her home. The government has still not made any official announcement of its action. The statement said the party had "learnt with regret that authorities have continued to hold ... Aung...

I have never met Nobel laureate and Burmese democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, but I hope one day I will. Suu Kyi's picture hangs prominently in my Capitol Hill office, reminding me daily of her plightand her strength. Courageous and tenacious, Suu Kyi is the symbol of the nonviolent struggle for freedom and justice in Burma. As head of the National League for Democracy (NLD), she and other Burmese patriots have dedicated their lives to reform in one of the world's most repressive countries, currently misruled by an illegitimate military regime calling itself the State Peace and Development Council...

RANGOON, Burma -- Min Ko Naing spent nearly 16 years in solitary confinement. Not even his jailers would make eye contact with him.Myo Myint was repeatedly stripped, shackled and beaten while spending much of the same period in prison, also for challenging Burma's military rulers. During one interrogation, he recalled, he was kept naked for four days while being bludgeoned with canes. During another, he was lashed for hours to a seesaw, head down, until he blacked out. Myo Myint, 43, a former soldier who lost an arm and leg in a land mine explosion, spent nearly 15 years in...

Aung San Suu KyiÂ [Opposition Leader]Since her detention in 2003 after her convoy was attacked by thugs backed by the junta, pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been silent (read: silenced) and cut off from all communication with the outside world. Â . Â . Â@Than ShweÂ [Burma's Junta Supremo] Â BurmaÂfs most powerful general has ruled the country since 1992 and currently holds the governmentÂfs two highest postsâchairman of the State Peace and Development Council and commander-in-chief of the armed forces..Â@Â@ 88-Generation Students GroupÂ [Burmese Student Leaders] Charm TongÂ [Exiled Activist] Burmese Radio Service from AbroadÂ [Media]

Aung San Suu Kyi Detention Extension Media Release from Burma Campaign UK Responding to newswire reports that Burmas democracy leader has had her detention extended for a further year, Mark Farmaner, Campaigns Manager at the Burma Campaign UK said: This extension demonstrates the regime has no intention of relinquishing power and that its so-called road map to democracy is a sham. Unless the international community acts, Aung San Suu Kyi could spend the rest of her life under house arrest. It is time for the United Nations Security Council to pass a binding resolution requiring the restoration of democracy to...

Freedom for Aung San Suu Kyi is a precondition for progress In cruel solitude, denied visitors or even a telephone, a frail woman marks ten years as the political prisoner of a vicious and illegitimate military dictatorship. Since 1988, when she returned from Britain to her native Burma and, in response to a massacre of student demonstrators, formed the resolutely non-violent National League for Democracy, the Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi has spent most of those 16 years in prison or under house arrest. It is 15 years since the League astounded the junta by winning 80...

Mandela wins BBC's 'global election' Mandela was selected by more than half the players Former South African President Nelson Mandela has topped a BBC poll to find the person most people would like to lead a fantasy world government.More than 15,000 people worldwide took part in the interactive Power Play game, in which players were invited to choose a team of 11 to run the world from a list of around 100 of the most powerful leaders, thinkers and other high-profile people on the planet. The second choice was former US President Bill Clinton. The winning 11 were...

Recently under the sponsorship of the Indian Embassy in Rangoon, "The Forgotten Hero," the Indian film about Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose was shown to the public in Burma. It was screened on August 15, (India's Independence Day) free of charge. The $US5 million film partially shot in Burma, illustrates the life of Bose. Directed by Mr. Shyam Benegal, a part of the film was shot in Burma in December 2003 for 20 days. The great Indian war hero Subhas Chandra Bose may have spent his finest and fruitful days in Burma, but its capital city does not have any memorial...

A team of Malaysian lawyers is urging the Attorney General to drop a case involving 64 Burmese activists arrested while demonstrating outside the Burmese embassy in Kuala Lumpur in June. Latheefa Koya, one of the lawyers representing the detainees, confirmed that a formal request will be submitted as soon as the UN High Commissioner for Refugees confirms the activists as being persons of concern, refugees or asylum-seekers. The 64 were arrested on June 16 in front of the Malaysian capitals Burmese embassy, where they were demanding the release of Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who is currently under...

Referred to by the Dalai Lama as his 'little sister' this Burmese freedom fighter has tirelessly worked for democracy in her country for the last 16 years... Danubyu, Myanmar. 5 April, 1989: two months before the Tiananmen Square massacre in nearby China. A woman walks down the middle of the street, accompanied by several men. Six soldiers of the State Law and Order Restoration Council - the junta which has crushed the democracy movement and killed thousands of people in Rangoon - order the group to stop. The group pays no heed. A young army captain whips out his revolver...

The U.N. envoy leading reconciliation efforts in Myanmar said Tuesday that its foreign minister refused to see him while at a regional conference, in a snub to international efforts to bring democracy in the military-ruled country. Envoy Razali Ismail had flown to Vientiane specifically to see Myanmar Foreign Minister Nyan Win and persuade the junta to allow him to visit Myanmar and see pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who is under house arrest. Razali said Nyan Win sent a message to him saying, "he would be too busy" with engagements at this week's meeting in the Laotian capital of...

International Campaign for Freedom of Aung San Suu Kyi and Burma (USA) 3rd Day All six activists woke up at 5:00 a.m. After showering and snacking, at 6:50 a.m. they left U Min Lwin's house by car, headed for today's stop: in front of the British Embassy in Washington, D.C. They arrived near the embassy at 7:30 a.m. and found a parking space for their car within 15 minutes' walking distance from the British Embassy. After speaking with the authorities from the British Embassy, the activists were allowed to protest across the street from the front of the British Embassy....

Burmese Nobel Laureate Still Under House Arrest on 60th Birthday By Stephanie Ho /Washington 19 June 2005 Supporters of Burmese Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi issued fresh calls for her release, as she marked her 60th birthday Sunday, under house arrest in Rangoon. She has been detained for nearly 10 of the last 16 years. Protesters at a small rally in front of the Burmese Embassy in Washington Friday mixed a traditional happy birthday song to Aung San Suu Kyi with calls for her release. At the demonstration, Congressman Tom Lantos, who is the only Holocaust survivor in the...

Burma's detained pro-democracy leader celebrates her 60th birthday with little hope of being freed soon On Sunday, millions of people throughout the world will mark the birthday of Burma's pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. The coordinated campaign around the world, in almost every major city in Asia, Australia, Europe and North America, is trying to highlight the plight of one of the world's best known freedom fighters, languishing under house arrest in her lakeside residence in Rangoon. But Burma's military rulers are likely to remain totally unmoved by the millions of Burmese and international protesters demanding her immediate release....

Photo: AFP KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) - Malaysia's former premier Mahathir Mohamad, who while in power was an important ally of Myanmar's junta, has called on the ruling generals to release democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Mahathir, who engineered Myanmar's entrance into the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), said the junta should not be afraid of the ramifications of freeing Aung San Suu Kyi or making other reforms."I fought hard for Myanmar to be admitted into ASEAN. I think the leaders of Myanmar should consider public opinion (in support of her release) and there is nothing they have...

The Associated Press - BANGKOK, Thailand - The Georgia-based rock band R.E.M. will broadcast a song dedicated to Myanmar's detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi into the military-ruled country via satellite television to mark her 60th birthday, a U.S.-based activist group said. The group will perform the unspecified song for the Nobel Peace Prize laureate at its June 19 concert in Dublin, Ireland, and air it inside Myanmar though an Oslo-based dissident television station, the U.S. Campaign for Burma said in a statement dated Wednesday. Myanmar was formerly known as Burma. The broadcast is part of a series...

On Sunday Aung San Suu Kyi will celebrate her 60th birthday, which in a Buddhist culture marks an important milestone in one's life. I would like to meet her and give her a rose like the one she is seen holding in a photograph in my study. Such an ordinary wish, however, in the case of such an extraordinary woman as Aung San Suu Kyi may seem a silly idea. The last time I wrote about her in The Post [op-ed, Oct. 12, 2003] was shortly after "unknown" assassins tried to deprive her of her life and Burmese generals put...

For Immediate Release: June 14th, 2005 LEADING MEMBER OF the U.S.CONGRESS TO LEAD PROTEST AT EMBASSY OF BURMA PHOTO OPPORTUNITY, WASHINGTON, DC JUNE 17TH AT 10:00 AM For More Information, Contact: Lynne Weil, (202) 225-6735 Office of Congressman Tom Lantos Jeremy Woodrum (202) 246-7924 US Campaign for Burma Tom Lantos, Top Democrat on International Relations Committee, To Deliver 6,000 Birthday Cards Demanding Release of World's Only Imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize Recipient Aung San Suu Kyi (Washington, DC) Tom Lantos (D-CA), the ranking member on the House International Relations Committee, will lead a protest in front of the Embassy...

Nick Mathiason says Tony Blair must keep last week's pledge to take a stand against the junta Walk around Rangoon and you'd never guess you were living in one of the world's most brutal regimes. The military presence doesn't feel overbearing. In plain clothes, though, lurk military intelligence agents. They are everywhere. And then there are the informers on street corners and at meeting places. Burma is a country where no one can trust their neighbour. Oppose the military junta and you will be informed on and tracked down. Evade them and family members will be arrested and tortured....

The Senate plans to hold an urgent meeting to clarify its stance on the controversial question of Burma taking up the rotating chairmanship of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) next year. Senator Kraisak Choonhavan, chairman of the Senate committee on foreign affairs, told the Senate yesterday the time had come to make it known to the world whether Thailand was also opposed to Burma becoming Asean chairman. Mr Kraisak said Thailand needed to make its stand clear since many Asean nations now publicly oppose Burma being given the post. Moves to block Burma's succession were made during the...

<p>KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) -- A United Nations special envoy said Thursday he will visit Myanmar to determine the accuracy of reports that pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi is on a hunger strike protesting her current detention.</p>
<p>The U.S. State Department said Sunday that Suu Kyi was on a hunger strike, but Myanmar's ruling junta later dismissed the claim as "groundless."</p>

YANGON, Myanmar - Japan, Myanmar's largest donor, froze all financial aid to the country on Wednesday to punish its military government for detaining pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Japan appears to be rethinking its policy of engaging the junta in a dialogue with promises of aid - unlike the United States, the European Union and Britain, which have already imposed sanctions to press for Suu Kyi's freedom. Also Wednesday, U.N. special envoy Razali Ismail, the only outsider to see Suu Kyi since her arrest more than three weeks ago, said U.N. officials are "increasingly alarmed" about the government's refusal...

Politics silences Delhi on MyanmarBy Ranjit Devraj NEW DELHI - India's uncharacteristically muted response to the renewed incarceration of Myanmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been prompted by India's own problems with insurgent groups that thrive in its northeastern states near Myanmar, say observers here. "India has been bogged down with long-standing insurgency problems in its northeastern states, which it hopes to check with support from the military government in Yangon," said Ganganath Jha, an expert on Myanmar and professor at the prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). Jha said India's earlier policy of vocally supporting democracy in Myanmar...

Last week was Aung San Suu Kyi's 58th birthday. What should have been a day of quiet celebration with family and friends for the Nobel Peace Prize winner was instead spent in detention in a jail outside Rangoon. The Burmese regime's claims that she is in "protective custody" after her supporters clashed with opponents on May 30 lacks credibility. We know from witnesses' accounts that thugs, armed and hired by the regime, ambushed Ms Suu Kyi and her supporters in a premeditated attack. Dozens of civilians were killed and injured, scores were arrested, many more are still in hiding. The...

Myanmar's best known democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi is being held "in a two-room hut" at a jail near Yangon, Britain's junior foreign minister for Asia said. "I am appalled to learn today, on her 58th birthday, Aung San Suu Kyi is being held in the notorious Insein jail on the outskirts of Rangoon (Yangon) in a two-room hut," Mike O'Brien said in a statement. "I understand that she continues to wear the clothes in which she was arrested," he said. Aung San Suu Kyi was taken into "protective custody" after May 30 clashes which broke out during a...

Superficially, the May 30 mob violence and the detention in Burma of Aung San Suu Kyi, Asia's revered champion of democracy, appears to be a case of business-as-usual by one of the world's most reviled military juntas--a group that, for over a decade, has maintained a state of war against its population. However, the site of the incident, which occurred near the historic city of Mandalay, now largely controlled by ethnic Chinese, is symbolic of a larger strategic trend in the region. The military junta has little support among ethnic Burmese and the numerous tribal peoples in the rural areas....

AWEEK HAS PASSED since one of the world's most courageous women, Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, came under attack by goons controlled by the military regime in her Southeast Asian nation of Burma. No credible source has seen her since. She is reported to be injured and in custody at a military facility. Many of her supporters also were attacked, in many cases reportedly killed or seriously injured. A number of members of Congress, including Republican Sens. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and John McCain of Arizona, have expressed eloquent outrage, but world leaders have been slow to follow...